I stand very happily corrected ;o) I was thinking "pure-Poser", but if Vue can push things down to a-week-a-minute, Moore's Law seems to be working for animators, too. Thanks for the info.

Animations run at 15-30 frames-per-second. Render time for each frame depends on how much 3D content is in the scene (try out a still render of your scene, and multiply by the frame count). Add the set-up time for each scene/sequence, and you have a guesstimate of the time needed. Depending on the level of ambition, all one-man-made Poser movies (and animations in general) seem to inevitably take half a year to several years to complete. The shortest ones are typically less than five minutes' running time, and the longest, like "Raven"/"Raven 2" are no more than half an hour. All in all, "a-month-a-minute" (i.e., a month's work for every minute of animation) seems to be a good rule of thumb (do correct if I'm wrong, anyone?).

Superb stuff. Just what the doctor ordered for all kinds of spaceship cockpits, mysterious sci-fi secret police chambers and other kinds of exciting places ;o) Finish it a.s.a.p. willya !!!

In a word : THISISBLOODYFANTASTIC !!! ;o)

You could add a little extra bit of realism in a very lo-tech way by : - turning (and maybe inclining) her head slightly - turning her eyes back to look at the viewer - add an expression (smile, whatever) to add life to the face One of the reasons that these "realism demos" often look doll-like DESPITE superb tex and rendering like yours is that they are POSED doll-like. Don't get completely lost in technical fixes - even real human beings look doll-like when holding their head perfectly straight up, and staring perfectly straight ahead, with a completely blank expression on their face ;o)

Why are you wasting your time in our Ken-and-Barbie world when you ought to be doing urban and product design for $$$ ? Just kiddin' - I'm HAPPY you are willing to waste your talent here ;o)

I agree completely with the comments above - this is sheer Hollywood stuff!!! One thing you might want to consider (something I read about in a mag about Japanese inventors' ideas, I forget what mag it was). Instead of putting a cop on every corner, the vision was to have an "automated" cop, a sort of stationary booth or column with surveillance cams, communications, and of course a nice friendly interface to help law-abiding citizens and tourists find their way about the city. It had a fancy japanese name, but was - inevitably - dubbed an "APM", or automated policing machine. Goes without saying that a version with self-defense capabilities was envisioned, too!

You just can't keep a good pak down ;o) I use both the paks you describe. When placed in separate layers and combined with a bit of one's own airbrushing and blurring, etc. , there's next to nothing that can't be done. And I'm no on the "Pyrotechnica" creator's payroll, either ;o)

Attached Link: Comics page setup tute

Attached Link: Movie FX

Definitely postwork - it's Paint Shop Pro, BTW. Might work for animation if you "faded in" and "faded out" a muzzle flash over, say, 10 images, but I am definitely no expert at anim FX ;o)

Attached Link: Purgatory - a web comic strip

Seriously, the comments have been most kind. Nip over and have a look in your next coffee break, I have a hunch that the humble old strip format might offer a lot of advantages to more talented creators than yours truly ;o)

If you need a QS for S3, V3 or M3, you might want to check out the free QS's on http://www.renapd.com/FreebiesQS.htm.

I don't ;o) I just say : "Oh, it's an offbeat computer game. I can choose different characters and move them around with the mouse, and once in a while I click a button to take a picture of the action." At those rare occasions when you come across an "artiste" who feels threatened by this instant art-machine, just add "Just a hobby, really." That'll save you hours of listening to the "It's not art" sermon. Most people stop listening after the words "computer game", anyway ;o)

TrueSpace 4.3 sells for $79 at the moment - www.caligari.com. Pros : strong modeling, highly interactive UI, great renderer Cons : needs a plug-in for OBJ im-/export called luuv, which is, however, available for free.